As radioactive water continues to leak out of containment tanks and into the Pacific Ocean, more truth is leaking out concerning the efforts to cover-up the significance of the Fukushima disaster from the very beginning.

Immediately after the disaster was first reported, I recognized the familiar smell of a cover-up. Here is some of what I wrote on March 14, 2011, just three days after the event:

Since the Fukushima nuclear crisis began, we were given spotty, uninformative reports about the extent of the damage to the critical equipment, despite assurances that the “reactor vessels remain intact”.

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A good deal of the frustration experienced by those attempting to ascertain the status of the potential nuclear hazards at Fukushima, was obviously due to the control over information flow exercised by the Japanese government. I began to suspect that President Obama might have dispatched a team of Truth Suppressors from the Gulf of Corexit to assist the Japanese government with spin control.

During the subsequent weeks and months, I found it necessary to express my disgust over the cover-up of the hazard’s severity on more than a few occasions, such as here, here, here and here. Despite the fact that the first three of those four pieces were written in 2011, a good deal of the information contained therein would come as a surprise to most Americans.

Not included in the foregoing list of links was what I had to discuss about contamination of the Pacific Ocean back on May 12, 2011 – just two months after the earthquake and tsunami:

In the United States, the EPA has apparently become so concerned that the plume of radioactivity may have contaminated fish, which are being caught off the Pacific coast and served-up at our fine restaurants – that the agency has decided to cut back on radiation monitoring. That’s right. Thorough radiation testing of water and fish causes too much transparency – and that’s bad for business. Susanne Rust of California Watch discussed the reaction this news elicited from a group called Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Public Employees – uh-oh!):

The EPA and the Food and Drug Administration increased their radiation monitoring efforts after a massive earthquake and tsunami off the coast of Japan set off the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

But on May 3, the EPA announced [PDF] in a press release that it was falling back to a business-as-usual schedule of radiation monitoring, citing “consistently decreasing radiation levels.”

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“With the Japanese nuclear situation still out of control and expected to continue that way for months and with elevated radioactivity continuing to show up in the U.S., it is inexplicable that EPA would shut down its Fukushima radiation monitoring effort,” said Jeff Ruch, executive director of the watchdog group, in a statement.

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According to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the EPA has proposed raising their guideline radiation limits, or Protection Action Guides. These values are used to guide decision makers about when a clean up is needed after a nuclear incident.

According to Ruch, the new clean up standards are “thousands of times more lax than anything the EPA has ever before accepted.”

The latest disclosures concerning the magnitude of the hazards involved – as well as the efforts by TEPCO and the Japanese government to cover-up such information – have sparked widespread outrage. With a plume of radioactive water on its way to the West Coast, an assortment of experts – none of whom have any credentials to support a claim of expertise on the subject of the bio-effects of ionizing radiation – are busy telling people not to worry. They want us to believe that the radioactive water in the plume will be harmless.

Not only are such claims unscientific (no current data, no readings on radiation levels) they are obviously being made to convince the public of something that will, more than likely, be proven as untrue.

It has been one year since the earthquake and tsunami which caused the Fukushima nuclear power plant catastrophe. From the very beginning (March 14, 2011) I suspected a cover-up:

Since the Fukushima nuclear crisis began, we were given spotty, uninformative reports about the extent of the damage to the critical equipment, despite assurances that the “reactor vessels remain intact”.

Throughout the year following the Fukushima disaster, there has been an unending series of accounts concerning efforts by the plant operator, Tepco, as well as by governmental officials to cover-up the true extent of this tragedy. The hazardous radiation levels to which local residents were subjected, have become the focus of the most recent news reports exposing cover-up tactics. Asia Times correspondent Pepe Escobar was recently interviewed for Russia Today. Escobar reported that Fukushima officials concealed radiation data vital to safely evacuate people from that area. This was accomplished by the deletion of e-mails detailing the spread of radiation. An unidentified official (or several officials) from Fukushima prefecture should face responsibility for the loss of that data. At one point during the interview, Escobar remarked that the situation “sounds and looks and quacks like a major cover-up”. He expects that ultimately, “a low-level official” will take the fall for this transgression, with no consequences other than a generous severance package.

TheMainichi Daily News report on this suspicious situation revealed that officials from Fukushima prefecture deleted five days of early radiation dispersion data. In typical bureaucratic fashion, Fukushima prefecture officials claimed that “it was the responsibility of the central government to release the data”.

The obfuscation tactics employed by the plant operator, Tepco, have been apparent since the onset of this disaster. Nevertheless, Tepco continues to “play dumb”. In a March 28 report by Karen Sloan of the Associated Press, Tepco characterized the situation with the explanation that “conditions could be worse than officials had pictured”. The report pointed out that there are “fatally–high radiation levels” at the #2 reactor with less water than anticipated available for cooling the reactor. The damage is so severe that Tepco will need to “develop special equipment and technology” to decommission the plant. Worse yet, the other reactors which experienced meltdowns “could be in worse shape”. You can watch the video version of Karen Sloan’s report here. As for those “fatally–high radiation levels”, Anne Sewell of the Digital Journal pointed out that measurements revealed those levels to be “up to 10 times the lethal dose”. Beyond that, Ms. Sewell didn’t hesitate to remind her readers of the continuing problems encountered by those who have reported on this crisis:

Japanese authorities and Tepco representatives have been caught lying about the true situation at Fukushima on numerous occasions, which adds to the overwhelming stress on the residents.

First-hand accounts of the situation in Fukushima prefecture are provided by blogger Lori Mochizuki and her cohorts at the Fukushima Diary website. Their motto appears on the masthead of the site: “We are against the media blackout – Please support us so that we may inform the world.”

Those interested in keeping-up with the slow trickle of truth about this tragedy can follow the Fukushima Update website. Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer of Fairewinds Associates, is another source who provides regular updates on Fukushima.

As we have witnessed in the aftermath of the financial crisis, those entities responsible for the world’s worst disasters always find themselves rewarded with taxpayer-funded bailouts. The Fukushima nuclear catastrophe is yet another example of this principle. On March 29, Kentaro Hamada of Reuters reported that Tepco has asked the Japanese government for a $12.6 billion taxpayer-funded bailout. (This amounts to 1 trillion yen.) This amount would be in addition to the 850 billion yen which Tepco requested from the government in order to provide victim compensation. That’s right – a free $10.7 billion insurance policy! Is that coverage available to other companies? I’m afraid to ask! Nevertheless, some Japanese officials insist that the indemnity should come at a price – as the Reuters article explained:

The government is keen to obtain an initial majority stake in Tepco in return for the fund injection, with an option to boost the stake to two-thirds if the firm drags its feet on corporate reforms. A final decision, however, would have to wait until the company finds a new chairman, a second source with knowledge of the matter said.

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Trade Minister Yukio Edano, who is responsible for approving a public fund injection, has said he wants the government to have a significant say in managing Tepco, but the two sides have differed over how big the government stake should be.

Moral hazard and nuclear radiation hazard make such a wonderful combination!

Unfortunately, the cynicism expressed in my last posting was well-founded. The Japanese government has been misleading everyone about the extent of the nuclear hazards at the aptly-named Fukushima power plant. The only remaining question is whether the Japanese government was knowingly misleading everyone or whether it was just passing along the deception generated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). If the latter is the case, the Japanese are living under a similar system of “regulatory capture” to what we have in the United States. The frustration I expressed about the difficulty involved in attempting to obtain credible information about the Japanese nuclear crisis was experienced and discussed by a number of other commentators. Clive Crook put it this way:

From the start of this calamity I have wanted to know, “What is the worst that can happen at these nuclear sites? Suppose everything that could go wrong does go wrong: what then?” I still don’t know the answer. In what I have read so far — dozens of articles –nobody who knows what he is talking about has spelt this out carefully.

We are now learning that in 2008, the Japanese government had been warned by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that the nuclear reactors on the island nation could not withstand an earthquake. Through cables obtained by WikiLeaks, The Telegraph was able to provide this report:

The document states: “He [the IAEA official] explained that safety guides for seismic safety have only been revised three times in the last 35 years and that the IAEA is now re-examining them.

“Also, the presenter noted recent earthquakes in some cases have exceeded the design basis for some nuclear plants, and that this is a serious problem that is now driving seismic safety work.”

The cables also disclose how the Japanese government opposed a court order to shut down another nuclear power plant in western Japan because of concerns it could not withstand powerful earthquakes.

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Another cable reported to Washington local concerns that a new generation of Japanese power stations that recycle nuclear fuel were jeopardising safety.

The cable, quoting a local newspaper, reports: “There is something precarious about the way all electric power companies are falling in step with each other under the banner of the national policy. We have seen too many cases of cost reduction competition through heightened efficiency jeopardizing safety.”

The cables also disclose how Taro Kono, a high-profile member of Japan’s lower house, told US diplomats in October 2008 that the government was “covering up” nuclear accidents.

The outrage expressed by Japanese citizens over their government’s handling of the entire situation – both pre-crisis and post-tsunami, is rapidly receiving more coverage. American journalists who are covering the situation are expressing concern over their own safety. NBC’s Lester Holt and his crew had been exposed to what was described as “minute levels” of radiation, which was found on their shoes.

At a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on March 16, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Greg Jaczko testified that despite the fact that the Japanese government had established an evacuation zone with a radius of only 12 miles from the Fukushima plant, the NRC had recommended a 50-mile evacuation zone for U.S. forces and American citizens.

ABC News quoted the reaction of an expert from Europe, who provided a harshly different message than the vague statements issued by the Japanese government:

“There is talk of an apocalypse and I think the word is particularly well chosen,” European Union’s energy commissioner Günther Oettinger said today, according to various reports. “Practically everything is out of control. I cannot exclude the worst in the hours and days to come.”

The coming days will reveal the extent of the misrepresentations by TEPCO and the Japanese government concerning the threat posed by the hazardous situation at the Fukushima power plant. As I said last time: It’s not looking good.

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TheCenterLane.com offers opinion, news and commentary on politics, the economy, finance and other random events that either find their way into the news or are ignored by the news reporting business. As the name suggests, our focus will be on what seems to be happening in The Center Lane of American politics and what the view from the Center reveals about the events in the left and right lanes. Your Host, John T. Burke, Jr., earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Boston College with a double major in Speech Communications and Philosophy. He earned his law degree (Juris Doctor) from the Illinois Institute of Technology / Chicago-Kent College of Law.